In the early 1960s, the Northwest Coast Revival saw Indigenous artists—from the Haida to the Kwakwaka wakw—revive their traditional craftwork styles across regions like Alaska, Washington, and British Columbia. Trailblazing artists such as Bill Reid and Art Thompson began reviving the distinctive masks, blankets, spruce-root hats, and totem poles that their ancestors had been creating for centuries, igniting an art movement that lasted well into the 1990s. Simultaneously, a similar movement was occurring in the world of high fashion, and a new book spotlights the work of a particular Indigenous designer who paved the path forward.
Releasing next month, Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread celebrates the work of the Haida designer, a fashion pioneer who began her career in the 1980s. Born into the Raven clan in Hydaburg, Alaska, Grant first learned how to sew and weave from her maternal grandmother when she was just 13, and began creating regalia for Haida dance groups in her community. In 1989, she debuted her first clothing collection, titled Feastwear. It featured modern silhouettes that were hand-appliquéd with Northwest Coast formline—a style of Indigenous art that features flowing, curving lines to outline abstract symbols such as bears and eagles. Grant was one of the first to do so through contemporary style.
It didn’t take long for the fashion world to take notice of her one-of-a-kind work. Since debuting her very first collection at the Hotel Vancouver, Grant quickly rose to prominence—hosting runway shows everywhere from Paris to Tokyo, and displaying her work in museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. In 2015, she also received the Order of Canada, a prestigious honor that recognized her contributions to the fashion world and her work with mentoring youth. (Recently, Grant has been visiting Indigenous communities to work with young people, and to teach them how to create fur-felted ceremonial hats.)
While delving into the new book, readers can take a look back on four decades of Grant’s meaningful and striking designs. Her traditional button robes, graphic scarf tops and dresses, and signature hats are displayed everywhere from natural settings in British Columbia to on the runway at the annual Santa Fe Indian Market Indigenous fashion show. Grant’s sketches, personal stories, and reflections are also woven throughout.
In an industry that often overlooks Indigenous talent, then, An Endless Thread serves as a long-overdue celebration of Grant, who has long advocated for the intersection of cultural pride, style, and a maintaining of tradition. “This book has been seventeen years in the making—to see it come to fruition has me beyond words,” Grant writes in the acknowledgments. “The journey to here and now has been a wild and great ride! These photographs have helped me remember all the nuances of pasttimes: the moods, locations, events, and, most importantly, the people.”
